The Cabal

EPILOGUE Several Months Later

It was noon, and, shirtless, McGarvey was running along the rocky path above the Aegean Sea on the Greek island of Serifos, pushing himself as he had since coming back to the same island, the same converted lighthouse he’d run to a number of years ago.

That time John Lyman Trotter, a close friend, had turned out to be a mole within the CIA, and in the end McGarvey had been forced to kill him, getting seriously wounded himself. He’d found this island, this refuge in the middle of nowhere, and started the healing process.

Only now he wasn’t bouncing back quite as fast, and this time he was alone, truly alone except for his granddaughter, who Otto and Louise had brought here six weeks ago for a visit.

And seeing her, being with her, was wonderful and sad all at the same time because Audie was the spitting image of Liz, who’d been the spitting image of Katy. A lot of memories had come to the surface making it next to impossible to keep smiling and keep it light.

Already she was forgetting her parents. It was something Otto and Louise wanted to correct. They wanted to show her the pictures, a few videos that Todd had made and tell her about them.

“Later, when she’s older,” McGarvey had told them after they’d put her to bed. The night had been soft, the kind Katy had always loved. “She wouldn’t understand. And you’re her parents now. Just love her, it’s all she needs.”

Reaching the west side of the island, he came in sight of the white-tiled patio at the base of the lighthouse one hundred yards below, and pulled up short. The figure of a man was leaning on the railing looking down at the sea, one hundred feet below.

Apparently he’d walked up from town, not an easy task.

McGarvey had switched back to his Walther PPK, more out of sentimental reasons than any other, and it was holstered at the small of his back. He never went anywhere without it these days.

So he started down the path toward the lighthouse wondering who the man was, because he wasn’t familiar, and why he had come.

And McGarvey was curious, so his step quickened just a little.